Posts Tagged ‘movies’

Nowadays, there isn’t much you can’t stream online. But even though we all can’t seem to get enough entertainment, turns out none of us use online video streaming the same way. (And we might not be that satisfied when we do.)

Personally, we stream a lot of media, primarily movies. We usually have to go to multiple sources, Netflix, Hulu, SnagFilms, YouTube and even the Internet Archive to find everything we might be looking for. That, apparently, is not unusual.

How about you? Do you need multiple sources to meet your streaming needs?

Looks like when it comes to the battle of the sexes, things are streaming up. See who likes to do it where, when, and just how often — brought to you by M-GO.

All those songs, games, apps, mobile connections and movie downloads are taking a toll on Americans’ wallets, with more than half of U.S. adults saying technology has made it easier to spend money and only 3 percent saying it has made it easier to save.

That’s according to a survey conducted for the American Institute of CPAs by Harris Interactive for National Financial Literacy Month.

The national phone poll of 1,005 U.S. adults found that Americans who subscribe to digital services spend an average of $166 each month for cable TV, home Internet access, mobile phone service and digital subscriptions, like satellite radio and streaming video—the equivalent of 17 percent of their monthly rent or mortgage payment.

Those who download songs, apps and other products spend an additional $38 per month, on average.

Given those expenses, it’s no wonder that 56 percent of Americans believe that technology has made it easier to spend money and only three out of 100 say it has made it easier to save. Thirty-seven percent are split on the issue, saying technology has made it easier to both spend and save.

Gaddget connections efficient, but bring financial challenges

“Our gadgets and connections can bring benefits like mobility and efficiency,” said Jordan Amin, chairman of the National CPA Financial Literacy Commission.

“But they can also bring financial challenges, like taking money that could go to savings, for instance, or contributing to credit card debt. We have to mind these expenses and budget for them to ensure the benefits outweigh the costs.”

Here are three tips from the National CPA Financial Literacy Commission on managing digital expenses:

Set a budget. Decide how much you are willing to spend each month on digital services, apps and content. Not sure where to start? Look at how much you’ve spent on technology purchases in previous months and how that compares with your overall spending and saving. Too much? Just right? This will give you a baseline for determining an ideal budget for such purchases.

Set up an account. Since many digital purchases are automatically drafted from bank accounts or charged to credit cards, it can be difficult to keep track of spending. To help, set up a separate checking account or credit card account—with a low limit—for your digital purchases. Set email or text message alerts to let you know when your balance is near your budgeted threshold. If you use a credit card, be sure to pay off the balance each month.

Evaluate. Regularly evaluate your spending on digital products—especially subscription services with recurring fees. Are you using the services enough to justify the expense? At least yearly you should also look at spending on technology infrastructure such as cell phones and Internet connections. Are there new features, bundles or technologies that could lower your total bill?

Since 2007, the AICPA has conducted an annual survey of Americans to determine their top financial concerns and assess their financial well-being.

Additional findings from this survey include:

Four in 10 adults, or 41 percent, download and pay for digital products or services.

Based on those who download each type of content, Americans buy an average of five digital songs per month, five movies or TV shows, two apps, two games and two eBooks.

Seven in 10 adults, 69 percent, with annual household incomes of $100,000 or more download and pay for digital products and services, which is significantly higher than the roughly one quarter of those, 28 percent, with annual household incomes of less than $35,000.

If facing a financial crunch, Americans would rather change what they eat than give up their cell phones, downloads or digital TV services. Asked to choose the one action they would most likely take in tight time, 41 percent said they would cut back on eating out, 20 percent said they would cut off cable TV, 8 percent said they would end cell phone service and 8 percent said they would stop downloading songs and digital products.

Not surprisingly, mobile device users queried “shopping” and “discounts” significantly after Thanksgiving, marking the beginning of the holiday shopping season, according to app search engine Chomp.

Query traffic for the terms spiked over 1200% and 3000% above normal on Black Friday and stayed consistent over the long weekend before bottoming out after Cyber Monday.

On Android, larger categories such as games, utilities, and music increased their category share by at least one percent, while books, finance and sports saw small decreases in their shares.

For iOS, games decreased their share from 32.6% to 31.7% and social networking decreased from 7.1% to 5.5%. Lifestyle apps saw a small uptick from 5.2% to 6.1%.

Paid app downloads decreased from 7% to 3% on Android. The decreases were concentrated at price points lower than $2.00. Weakness was also seen at the premium price points between $4.01 and $5.00, and $9.01 and $10.00, decreasing from 0.6% to 0.2% and 0.3% to 0.1%, respectively. On iOS, paid downloads increased from 20% to 27%.

The increase was concentrated at the $.99 and $1.99 price points. The former increased from 10.3% to 15.9%. The latter increased from 4.2% to 5.2%. Price points above $10.00 also increased their share from .7% to 1.3%.

“Free” was again the top search term across all countries sampled on Android. Contract Killer debuted on the international top app list along with StumbleUpon. The top five Android apps were Dropbox, eBay, Handcent SMS, Movies and WhatsApp Messenger.

More diversity abroad

App search abroad showed more diversity on iOS. Pandora and Facebook stayed incredibly popular internationally, with the game Fragger debuting on the international top app charts. The top iOS apps for November were TuneIn Radio, Instagram, Zombie Highway, TuneWiki and Doodle Jump.

Over two billion apps are being downloaded each month and the number of available Android and iOS apps has surged to almost one million. As the number of apps increase, so does the need for effective app search.

On the Android platform, 84% of searches were made by app function (e.g. “adventure games,” “books,” etc.) and only 16% by the actual app name. On the iOS platform, 83% of searches were made by app function and only 17% by the app name.

It’s interesting that many shopping searches start with generic terms such as “free” or “games” or “discounts,” and that many app searches are also generic.

How does the download data match up with your own experience? We downloaded StumbleUpon, TuneIn Radio, Pandora, Facebook, among those mentioned, and Angry Birds, Evernote, Night of the Living Dead (game), and Twitter apps for our new Kindle Fire, which is an Amazon customized Android device.

Just as an aside, the only app that presented trouble so far was for Tumblr, which just would not accept our password, although we did access it ok from the Kindle Fire web browser.

Real-time social media is exploding on a global basis, according to the first GlobalWebIndex report. This massive shift is redefining the impact of social media from publishing to sharing and driving new opportunities for professional media and content producers to build sustainable businesses online.

The report explores how shifts in consumer adoption in social media to “real-time” technologies combined with the rise of packaged Internet platforms, such as apps, mobile platforms, consoles, tablets and television services are fuelling the consumption of traditional rich content and media online.

There are major shifts in the consumer involvement in social media, with monthly usage of social networking growing by 20% between July 2009 and September 2010, reaching 46% of global Internet users. Micro-blogging, as led by Twitter, increased 21%, to 12% of global internet users. There is also a significant increase in uploading video online, rising 16%, to 25% of web users on a monthly basis.

Real-time is re-orienting the Internet

This means that ongoing real-time contribution through status updates, tweets or link sharing is increasingly defining most people’s social contribution. Already over 10% of global Internet users post a status update on a social network more than once a day, while 5% contribute a micro-blog update at least daily.

This is in stark contrast to the long form: text-based forms of social contribution that defined early social media adoption. The percentage of Internet users writing a blog on a monthly basis fell by 4%, to 25% of web users, while contribution to forums or message boards fell by 11%, to 24% of web users.

Tom Smith, the founder of the GlobalWebIndex, states: “Real-time is re-orientating the Internet back to mass media and professional content creators thanks to the changing impact of consumer involvement in social media. Now users focus on sharing other people’s content and commenting or responding to live events instead of creating their own content.”

He continued, “The consumer is moving from being the creator to the distributor. Consequently ‘Real-time’ is a massive opportunity for ‘traditional’ media and content producers, a fact also clearly demonstrated by the individuals and organisations that dominate Twitter.”

Rise of “packaged Internet” eclipsing the browser

The open browser-based web is losing out to “packaged Internet” platforms, such as TV, e-readers or applications. This is most clearly marked in mobile Internet usage, which has increased in just one year from 25% of Internet users to 33% using it in the last month.

This is followed by mobile apps, which, as of September 2010, are accessed by 25% of internet users, internet via a games console at 10%, tablet/e-readers at 4%, and TV sets at 2% of global internet users. These trends undermine the concept of the Internet as a singular entity or media and point to a future where many people’s primary internet experience will not be via a browser, but by an Internet connected platform.

Smith continues, “Packaged platforms are re-engineering the Internet from a browser based experience. Crucially, it provides professional media and content producers with the means to build sustainable businesses online, something the open web has failed to enable. This is as important, if not more important, for a functioning society, as enabling consumers to publish and share their opinions. This commercial push will advance the delivery of the social entertainment experience.”

The explosion of traditional content through Internet platforms

The fastest growing motivation to use the Internet in 2010 was to “To find TV and films”, which grew by 29% between July 2009 and September 2010; that bodes well for online film providers, including DC-based Snagfilms, which just nabbed $10 million in growth capital to take its movies to even more digital devices.

This was followed by “To find music” (22% growth) and “Entertainment”, which grew by 13.4%. These three motivations outstripped all social media focused motivations and will continue to explode in 2011.

The result is that rich professional content is now a core part of a consumer’s web experience. By September 2010, 66% of global Internet users had watched a video clip in the last month, 29% had streamed live TV, 27% had watched full length TV on demand, 25% had downloaded free TV programming, 13% had illegally downloaded TV via P2P, and 9% had paid for content.

This is a concrete demonstration of how streaming, packaged platforms and the integration of social distribution have driven mass consumer consumption.

Smith concludes, “The Internet through its various forms is for many the lead entertainment platform of choice. The integration of social technologies and professional content will be the most exciting dynamic of the internet over the next five years. Your social network or the wider consumer network will be increasingly important in defining all content and media that you consume. While consumers may not define the agenda with their content, they will increasingly dictate the patterns of consumption.”